This is an interesting titbit, in today’s Guardian:
Peter Mandelson has attacked the BBC’s coverage of Europe and accused Today presenter John Humphrys of “virulently anti-European views”.
In a letter to BBC chairman Michael Grade, Mr Mandelson, the European trade commissioner, says the corporation has a “specific problem with the anti-European bias of some presenters” and said it was failing in its charter obligation to promote understanding of European affairs.
I seldom listen to the Today show, but it is clear from further remarks of Mandelson’s that the Guardian goes on to quote that what Mandelson means by “anti-European views” is “anti-EU” views, which is a typically sneaky piece of EUrophilia. Has Humphrys been denouncing French cuisine, or Italian opera, or German engineering? Has he been saying that the French are all rude, the Italians rotten at driving, and the Germans all crypto-Nazis under a veneer of politeness. Has he been saying bad things about Estonians? No, of course not.
What Mandelson has accused Humphrys of is making EUroscepticism sound convincing, in the following rather interesting way:
The former trade secretary, who was appointed to the European commission last year, says the BBC gives too much coverage to moderate Eurosceptics and not enough airtime to extreme Eurosceptics such as UKIP.
So Mandelson has now become a UKIP supporter. How is that going to look? No doubt it is all part of some cunning plan designed to split the anti-EU camp and present it as all bonkers, xenophobic, etc., but it sounds to me like a somewhat high risk strategy. What if UKIP gets more airtime, in accordance with Mandelson’s demands, and uses it to be rather persuasive?
I wonder if Mandelson also thinks that this man should have more airtime?
UKIP are utterly hopeless at PR though. The arguments they put forward succeed despite UKIP rather than because of it.
More coverage for UKIP is a win-win for Mandelson – if UKIP succeed, they’ll mostly do so at the expense of the Tories, and if they fail they will detract from the credibility of the anti-EU argument. Either way, New Labour wins.
The reason that this is the case is the British electoral system; the first-past-the-post system punishes minority and single-issue parties, and any electoral success they gain tends to have the effect of preventing their most-like-minded rivals from winning either.
Not being British or European, what specifically is it that you guys are not fond of in the EU?
Is it the bureaucracy of the Hague making laws to apply to the UK. I assume it is these laws you are against,
and not the ‘freedom’ of capital and labour flows between EU countries. Because isn’t free labour, capital and business flows a good thing?? I thought that was the point of the EU, and that the individual countries e.g. the UK (like Texas in the States) maintain their own laws and local government. Correct me if I’m wrong.
It is pretty plain that the thinking Europhiles realise perfectly well that cogent, rational and non-hysterical arguments against the EU are increasingly accepted here in Britain. The pro-EU arguments are weak and ineffective in comparison.
Obviously, the best thing for the pro-EU lobby is to paint the antis as racist, xenophobic Little Englanders. This is harder to do with the Tories, but very easy in the case of UKIP and Veritas. Indeed, the fringe single-issue anti-EU parties are increasingly a Europhile’s PR dream. Naturally, they want to talk them up.
The sensible thing to do in the anti-EU argument is to put the constitutional and economic cases for withdrawal, or at least for a more distant membership. FORGET about stuff like immigration.
Britain has a lavish and easily-defrauded welfare system. This is what attracts non-productive immigrants. Whether we are members of the EU or not will make no difference to this issue whatsoever. Discussing immigration, particularly in the context of independence from the EU, tends to attract the racists and xenophobes, many of whom naturally dislike the EU. This in turn makes it easy for the pro-EU lobby to discredit the anti-EU lobby.
Silly and petty anti-EU arguments, such as against metrication & immigration, should be dropped. They may be genuinely felt concerns, but in the greater scheme of things are utterly irrelevant. Immigration is a problem not because of the EU but because of welfare – so the argument is pointless in the anti-EU context. The country will inevitably go metric anyway, whether you like it or not and whether it is compulsory or not, so get used to it. It is futile & frankly stupid to focus on pointless trivia like this as an anti-EU argument – all this does is help the pro lobby.
Because parties like UKIP and Veritas bang on about British independence and our right to do things our way, they tend to attract the anti-metric wingnuts and the xenophobes. It is increasingly obvious that, despite early promise and despite the merit of their fundamental cause, they will not help the independence campaign, only hinder it.
Surely it is apparent that if Europhiles like Mandelson want to encourage parties like UKIP and Veritas, those parties must be prejudicial to the Eurosceptic lobby?
EG
Other than to note that the proportion of his post that they occupy suggests he is less than sure of his case, I shall ignore Euan Gray’s lengthy essay on the joys of metrication, as we’ve trampled this one to death before – at least once.
He does, sadly, have a point about what is slithering through Mandelson’s mind. Having just read the list and description of the candidates standing for election to the UKIP’s NEC, I’ve got to conclude that the party does have more than its fair share of hopeless idiots. These could, if successful, well be used by the lying toads in the media to portray anyone opposed to federalism (or the EU at all) as intellectually challenged. Likewise, Kilroy Silk, who does such harm to Euroscepticism that you can’t help wondering if Mandelson created him in a laboratory somewhere.
That said, the Tories simply cannot be trusted on the EU. Time and again they have been proved liars and there are still far too many of the Hesseltine-Clarke persuasion near the top of the party, if not among the newer MPs and at root level.
Much will depend on how the UKIP plays this. If it can weed-out its lunatics and its losers, it will play a very valuable role in getting across the message about how vile an organisation the EU is and will act to spur the lazy Tory party to action. If it doesn’t, Mandelson may be right.
But never forget, Mandelson isn’t a very clever man (he’s been caught-out too often). He is just devious one and that’s not at all the same thing. If UKIP plays a sensible game it could show him for the fool he is. The British are more anti-EU than Mandelson realises, so what he sees as rabidity and believes will shock the man in the street, is seen as conventional wisdom in the Dog and Duck.
Mandelson, wouldn’t know conventional wisdom if it came to him in a nightmare. That could be his fatal error.
One thing that we have learned well here in the States is to never underestimate the basic stooopidty of politicians. After their recent rout at the polls the Democrats have launched a campaign to alienate their strongest supporters.
So if provided with a handgun and ammunition and giving basic lessons on trigger control, the average pol is more then capable of blowing his foot off. Then wondering why we laugh at them.
“The problem with political jokes is they get elected.”
Henry Cate VII
One thing that we have learned well here in the States is to never underestimate the basic stooopidty of politicians. After their recent rout at the polls the Democrats have launched a campaign to alienate their strongest supporters.
So if provided with a handgun, ammunition and given basic lessons on trigger control, the average pol is more then capable of blowing his foot off. Then wondering why we laugh at them.
“The problem with political jokes is they get elected.”
Henry Cate VII
Whoopsie! could have swore I hit preview then post, but obviously not. I need another cup o’
Andy Mo writes:
“I thought that was the point of the EU, and that the individual countries e.g. the UK (like Texas in the States) maintain their own laws and local government. Correct me if I’m wrong.”
It’s deeply troubling how frequently we see this level of misunderstanding demonstrated here by Americans.
Life is too short to explain the myriad ways in which the EU is a lousy idea, so let me just try a handful.
Imagine if, instead of the very sensible NAFTA, you were faced with the prospect of the entire continent of America being governed from, say, Caracas.
That the Caracas assembly in whose election you played a relatively minor role, had little power anyway and that the real authority lay in the hands of unelected officials who ruled by diktat.
That this pan-American government’s finances had repeatedly been exposed as riddled with fraud and that no auditor would pass its accounts.
That the US dollar was being dropped in favour of a pan-American currency over which, again, you had no control.
That your defence interests were about to be pooled with those of your fellow pan-Americans.
That, when whistleblowers exposed fraud and corruption in Caracas it was they who were sacked, not the corrupt officials.
Now do you understand what we object to?
Andy Mo, let me point out that if the EU had indeed stuck to the original declared aim of being a common free trade zone, I’d be its biggest cheerleader.
You get this from the fact that I mention metrication in only two sentences, and its inevitability in only one? I’ve got some Imperial sized tinfoil here…
But more seriously, I don’t agree with your point on the Tories. They are, whatever their many faults, the only even vaguely Eurosceptic party with any chance of influencing the debate. UKIP and Veritas will not do anything significant at the election other than split the anti-EU vote & help return Labour. In the course of this, they may frighten the Tories into a more sceptical stance, but that wouldn’t achieve anything until the next election, which probably would be too late.
The only REALISTIC chance of making any progress any time soon on the issue is to secure a Conservative government. Voting UKIP or Veritas will prejudice this, and if you really want to do anything at all about Europe, hold your nose and vote Conservative.
UKIP is essentially a single issue party, and such organisations do tend to attract the loonies, monomaniacs and wingnuts. Forget this stuff about destroying the Conservatives – UKIP is never going to replace them, but can seriously damage them in the short term. In the meantime, though, all you would achieve is to reduce even further any meaningful opposition to Labour.
EG
G Cooper – ‘Mandelson isn’t a very clever man – just devious’. This is a superb observation and one I hadn’t read before. You are absolutely correct. This twerp constantly overreaches and then thrashes around trying to recover himself. Although, given the intellectual wattage of NuLabe, it doesn’t take much to get labelled ‘clever’. BTW, Mandelson’s Jewish. I wonder what he makes of best-friend Toneboy’s conversion to anti-Semiticism …
Regarding your following post – I have long since given up trying to explain the EU to the more provincial level of American. They childishly relate everything to themselves – as in comparing all the ancient European countries and Britain, with all their languages and social mores developed over thousands of years and their separate and intertwined histories with American states and the US federal government. It is such a vapid argument it makes me want to scream.
Someone like Andy Mo, who has come to the issue very, very late and thinks he’s asking bright and original questions, has the demanding intellectual curiosity of a mosquito.
There is an underestimation of how UKIP plays with the Chavs,they don’t want scintillating political subtleties and they see themselves as losers in the multicultural multinational experiment.
These are the baseball caps and trainers of England and they haven’t spoken yet.
BTW, Andy Mo – EU laws aren’t made in The Hague. You are thinking of Brussels. Brussels is in Belgium. The Hague is in Holland. Brussels is the capital of Belgium. The Hague is not the capital of Holland. The capital of The Netherlands (aka Holland) is Amsterdam.
Are the objections to the EU grounded in the notion of a continent-wide government or grounded in the particular way that the EU is run?
– Josh
GCooper, the USA has pretty much been there already with the federal government and being governed from Washington. I’d even imagine that some of the states had their own currencies in the early days.
Europe is following in the USA’s footsteps, allbeit with greater gusto and loftier goals caused by a less anti-federalist environment.
Rich
Wild Pegasus: Both, depending on who you’re talking to. But the two objections are not orthogonal anyway.
Rich
Wild Pegasus
The way that the EU is run is an irrelevence. Its very existence is the problem. So we have a single market. Whoopee do. The nations of Europe or wherever can have that anyway if politicians step aside. The single market, however, is simply a building block to a single European state but I’ve banged on about that in that past and frankly can’t be bothered again. GCooper and Verity have explained it above.
Euan Gray writes:
“The only REALISTIC chance of making any progress any time soon on the issue is to secure a Conservative government. Voting UKIP or Veritas will prejudice this, and if you really want to do anything at all about Europe, hold your nose and vote Conservative.”
Who mentioned a general election?
The subject under discussion seems to have been the referendum on the proposed EU Constitution.
In that debate, the UKIP could have a very important role to play.
Richard Thomas writes:
“Europe is following in the USA’s footsteps, allbeit with greater gusto and loftier goals caused by a less anti-federalist environment.£
There are so many flaws in this argument that it’s hard to know where to begin.
So how about with just a single observation? That the USA was a country formed by people who had (for the most part) voluntarily left their homelands and sought a new life in a new Land.
They aspired to nationhood. They did not have a new one thrust upon them.
There are almost no comparisons between the two situations and, like Verity, I’m growing rather tired of having to try to explain this.
Richard Thomas – no, the US has not “pretty much been there”. You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Or perhaps I’ve been misunderstanding the government of the US all these years! Is it really governed by unelected, very privileged, highly paid, highly expense-accounted, highly pensioned apparachiks? I thought they elected Senators and Representatives and sent them to DC to govern! Silly me!
I had no idea that no auditors would sign off on the US federal budget year after year because of the deep corruption of the books! Fancy that!
The US was virgin territory. The original 13 states really didn’t want anyone else horning in. Various territories were only admitted to statehood after spending ages hanging around the door waiting for approval. They were all settlers on a brand new and largely empty continent. It behooved them to stick together. They all spoke English (except in LA). Excepting the few examples of French settlers, they all had their roots in Britain and English common law. They had not, over many centuries built up different civil and criminal codes.
There was a reason for them to bond together. There is absolutely no reason – none at all – for the ancient countries of Europe and Britain to suddenly be governed by a foreign country and cede their sovereignty.
There is no similarity at all between the forming of the USA and the insane project of shoehorning Europeans into one box for absolutely no reason.
The European Economic Community was sold to the electorates of Britain and countries in Europe as a free trade zone. Who wouldn’t vote for a free trade zone? Voters were assured that this was all there was to it. Free movement of goods and people. Then little by little began the drip, drip, drip, slyly, in the shadows, of federalism. As it morphed as unobtrusively as possible into the EU, they adopted an anthem. A free trade zone has an anthem? And of course, because of all the languages spoken in these independent nations, they couldn’t even have a real anthem with words.
And a flag! Does NAFTA have a flag? And a currency! Are the US and Canada going to adopt the Mexican peso whether they like it or not?
And an army (albeit it a joke army)! Does NAFTA have an army? And forget about normal cooperation between police forces! Forget Interpol! There’s going to be an EU-wide police force! Does NAFTA have a police force?
And a 380 page constitution, featuring respect for the transgendered and other current politically correct rubbish.
The governor of any American state now has more power than Tony Dim, Jacques Chirac, Gerhardt Schroeder & Co.
GCooper: Ah, of course. That is why it is called the United States of America and why the sovereinty of the states is (supposedly) protected by the constitution and why there were no anti-federalists, everyone in the states marching in unison. And why Rhode Island didn’t send delegates, they thought it was such a good idea that it should be obvious to everyone.
Rich
Verity, you are being obtuse. The analogy was to sovereign states being integrated into a federated organisation. Sure there is more corruption in the EU, that is the result of the “more gusto and loftier goals” which I mentioned in my original posts. Do you suppose that there isn’t corruption in Washington?
And since I was talking about the USA and not NAFTA, yes, there is a flag and a currency in case you hadn’t noticed.
Overall though, I think you (and GCooper) were reading too much in to what I wrote, possibly because you have certain bees in your bonnets. No analogy is perfect but should be taken for what it is and not necessarily torn apart for any trivial and inconsequential flaw.
To spell out my point, the original states were sovereign and had their own cultures and in some cases languages. Maybe their laws hadn’t built up “over many centuries” but so what? Then, for whatever motive, they were drawn into a federated organisation which has had far more influence than the original intent leading to homogenization and loss of local control.
As for states wanting to get in to the U.S.? Don’t you suppose that there are countries that wish to enter the EU (even in a more federated form than it currently exhibits)? And what is this with worrying about what states/countries want as if they are something more than lines on a map. I thought this was a website for the critically rational individualist. What about those individuals who don’t want things being directed from far away be it Brussels or Washington?
Europe has the potential to be orders of magnitudes worse because of the prevalence of socialist ideas over the last century or so.
Rich
If believing the sovereignty of Britain is worth fighting for is a “bee in the bonnet”, then I suppose I have one. It seems as though the hundreds of thousands of people who fought to keep Britain free in the 1940s – many of whom died – had a bee in their bonnets, too.
Could you tell us what different languages were spoken in the original 13 states, please?
Until the 1960s, the United States was almost entirely Anglophone. Even the German spoken in Texas and the Dutch spoken in Pennsylvania and some areas of New York didn’t last for longer than a couple of generations as a viable means of communication.
Did anyone with “a bee in his bonnet” lie about the intentions of the formation of the original 13 states and mislead the people – people who had packed up and travelled to a place they’d never seen in order to escape over mighty politicians – into believing they could only gain by forming an alliance?
Of course there is corruption in DC! However, the corruption in the EU is of African proportions. That is why, I repeat, they cannot get an auditor to sign off on their books. The EU makes Enron look like a Quaker meeting house.
There has never been a single, viable argument for the formation of a federal union of countries that are doing well enough on their own – especially a federal union that is sucking the lifeblood out of them. They’re not even ganging together for protection! They’re ganging together to give up their militaries. Du-uh. This whole project is rank insanity and is being powered by lies, not reality.
My comparison with NAFTA was obviously because that is what the people of Britain and Europe were told they were getting when they first signed up. Not a United States of Europe. A free trade zone. Things inched forward from there. Perhaps you were a little obtuse in not understanding the logic behind the connection?
Richard Thomas writes:
“Overall though, I think you (and GCooper) were reading too much in to what I wrote, possibly because you have certain bees in your bonnets.”
Thank you for your condescension. I shall regard your post as licence to issue similarly half-arsed proclamations about US affairs of which I know nothing and, when they are responded to by people whose country is actually at risk of a loss of sovereignty, will strive to be equally banal in response.
Does it? Neither Brian’s article nor the Guardian piece mention the referendum at all.
Anyway, even if it is the referendum:
A Labour government will hold the referendum late, ideally after everyone else has ratified the constitution, and will make sure there are simply oodles of lovely Euros available for the Oui vote.
A Tory government at least looks like it would hold the vote early – their current promise is not more than 6 months after the election. They say they will urge a No vote.
So, as I said earlier, a Tory vote looks like the best bet in the election.
EG
Richard Thomas,
The EU is more like the USSR than the USA,we are not trying to unite states with small populations as were the American states we are pushing together Nation States, some with 60/80 million people,each with their own language and culture.
It is also worth pointing out that the American Civil War was a consequence of forced unification.
This project has been driven by a political and bureaucratic elite,it does not have a democratic mandate in many countries.
The EU has progessed by treaties which hollowed out the political and legal sovereignty of nations,once the Constitution is ratified the separate nations of Europe will cease to exist. England has disappeared from the map,having been bureaucratically divided into Euro Regions.
Now imagine that Texas had been split up into provinces of Mexico,imagine the Texans had found that they were no longer Texan but Atzlan.
Even at ths late stage our so called Referendum merely asks if the EU should have a Constitution,not if we want another nationality or whether we want to have a form of government which is not a representative democracy but a benign oligarchy.
That was not what was on offer to the founders of the USA.
when they are responded to by people whose country is actually at risk of a loss of sovereignty
What’s that saying about “ASSUME”?
I am a Brit who has been anti EU since I first started developing a rational political perspective nearly two decades ago (some of the more rational aspects have taken longer to develop but the anti-EU one was pretty obvious). I followed the messes of the EU until I moved stateside a few years ago and it became much more work to do so (and increasingly less relevant).
The main quibbles I have seen so far with my comment have been on matters of scale, not substance. Please don’t make me go back to your original post and go through line by line about why my comment was valid.
And verity, yes, you certainly do have a bee in your bonnet as witnessed by your style of writing. Most notably taking my comment as some kind of criticism of your anti-EU stance rather than of the way you twisted my words and represented them as some kind of pro-EU stance.
Anyway, an end to this. If I have to post again in this thread, I will just go theough GCooper’s original post and show how my point applied. But really, I’d rather not.
Rich
Richard Thomas is correct in stating that the analogy is more about scale than scope. Europe certainly has more disparate features than the states and territories and countries that formed the US have (yes, countries. Texas and California were sovereign republics for a short time before statehood). BUT, the process of federating different sovereignties is similar. I asked a pro-EU individual in a different forum if the EU had ever considered the US model (senate / house) for federating to address the issue of large state dominance. The answer back was basically a typically arrogant European diatribe about ignorant Americans.
As far as I can tell the current attempt at an EU constitution is a power grab by an elite with socialistic and oligarchic tendencies, coupled with a bunch of short term money grubbers. Any country eager to join in deserves whatever happens.
Tell me, I heard that the Irish joined up to get all those lovely transfers of cash due to their poverty stricken state, true? And that now that their economy is humming quite nicely they are experiencing the dropping of the other shoe as the bill comes due. Any truth to this interpretation from my English friends?
Personally, the Brits should run not walk away as fast as possible. But given you lot and other things I’ve read I’m not optimistic.
AlanC writes:
“Richard Thomas is correct in stating that the analogy is more about scale than scope.”
I’m afraid you are both quite wrong, unless you are abandoning the normal use of the word analogy.
There can be no useful comparison made between the welding together of a handful of fledgling states which, for the most part, speak the same language, share a similar history and legal system and the imposition of a hegemonic oligarchy on separate countries, some of which have been in existence for over 1,000 years, and where the differences, in some instances, are far more profound than the similarities.
Any resemblance between the two situations is about far more than scale. It is about essential nature.
Euan Gray writes:
“It is pretty plain that the thinking Europhiles realise perfectly well that cogent, rational and non-hysterical arguments against the EU are increasingly accepted here in Britain. The pro-EU arguments are weak and ineffective in comparison.”
Just to offer a little food for thought, I would have no problem with the establishment of a ‘small’ pan-European state (including the UK) at the expense of the extinguishing of all of Europe’s national states – if only it were a small state with strong constitutional imperatives for the protection of civil and economic liberties. Such a pan-European state would be far better than either the existing EU or any national state since a pan-European sovereignty would underpin a pan-European culture of individual liberty.
That is of course however, a mere idle fantasy. Yet it is interesting to wonder whether our concepts of individual liberty which we hold aloft from the clutches of the state, nevertheless pre-suppose a sovereign state. Without a state, with laws applying to everyone irrespective of economic status, how would people think of themselves and each other as individuals in their own right and not merely in terms of whatever roles they carry out?
So it is not the abstract principle of a pan-European state that libertarian types necessarily object to, it is more the practical means of delivering it and the specific form and size it would take. And what of culture? I expect to have my comments savaged on this…
Richard Thomas – I didn’t twist your comment. Why would I? But I did ask you to let us know what languages were spoken in the original 13 states. The sentence, untwisted, to which I was responding was: “To spell out my point, the original states were sovereign and had their own cultures and in some cases languages …”
Could you please let us know which languages? Also, as a matter of interest, what “own cultures”?
Tocqueville: I’d have a problem with it. I wouldn’t trust an overarching, remote european super-state to remain “small”. The hypothetical libertarian constitution would be pasted on top of a lot of cultures that don’t have any history of that sort of government. The public would not hold their politicians to it. It would soon be subverted, but the now-intrusive superstate would remain.
Julian Morrison: Well of course. The idea may however be a useful device in persuading someone that the EU is (unfortunately; for the reasons you give) a bad idea. Also the relationship between the state and individual liberty does have a certain irony to it though…
Mr. Cooper, I assume from your answer you either didn’t read my entire reply or you didn’t understand it.
Of course there are more and more historic differences between the various entities that made up the US and the states of Europe. But, that is a difference of scale not scope. The issues involved in confederation are the same; how much authority to give to the federal entity, how to balance the needs of large vs. small states, how to synchronize (or not) economic ties, military, etc.
To put it bluntly, I think that Europeans are too hubristic to look at America and understand the lessons to be learned. The first thing that you have to do, if you want to federate (as I said IMHO that’s a mistake) is agree on the distribution of power among individuals, states and central government in principle. Not in a 380 page nit picking detail document.
When you try to hand-wave the big issues (see slavery) it’s going to come back and bite you in the ass. If you don’t explicitly limit the central governments authority in the constitution it will grow to the point that it is the sole font of authority (see our “elastic” clause). Our checks & balances, separation of powers and bill of rights have served to prevent the worst of central tyranny but it is an ongoing struggle. Without those instruments we would have lost our liberty years ago.
Oh, and for the person, verity?, that was asking about languages…..the USA is predominantly English, but, in earlier days there were movements afoot in both Pennsylvania and Ohio to make German the official language ( That’s Pennsylvania Deutsch it’s been corrupted to Dutch). Also in the early days of California and Texas and, I think, Florida Spanish was a major language as well. There were the French folks in Appalachia down to Louisiana, but, we don’t count the French ;^)
Much as I hate to appeal to authority but I don’t have any references to hand:
LEPORE: “One of the chief dangers that political theorists in the eighteenth century perceived about founding an American republic — that is, unifying these states — was that Americans didn’t really have that much in common with one another. Many Americans did not speak English as their first language, for instance.
There were a lot of native French speakers, a huge number of native German speakers, all of the Africans, all of the Native American peoples that lived in the colonies. None of those people spoke English as a first language. Some African Americans did speak English as a first language.”
–Jill Lepore, a history professor at Harvard University and author of the book, “A Is for American: Letters and Other Characters in the Newly United States.”
http://www.manythings.org/voa/wm/wm215.html
As for cultures? I can travel 40 miles north to Kentucky and notice a difference in culture. And that’s after 200 years of homogenization. On a non-state basis, I can travel 15 mile to the menonite village nearby and see a totally different culture or 50 miles to the indian reservation and see some difference again. People are saying about how America was formed by an influx of imigrants and then trying to suggest that somehow, there was a monolithic approach to languages and laws?
The simple fact is that the EU effect is not some magical unique thing. It is the same tendency to big government that is discussed daily on this site. It was seen in the forming of the United States and it’s happened before elsewhere too. On a similar scale, the USSR, on a smaller scale, the uniting of the United Kingdom, smaller and further back, the uniting of England.
Through history, power has moved higher and further away. To pretend that this is somehow different is to miss the opportunities to learn from History. Read some of the anti-federalist papers and see comments like being worried that the paper money issued during the war of independence would make people more disposed towards a federal government and contrast it with what’s happening with the single European currency.
Don’t be confused by seeing flag waving, SUV driving “happy to be an” Americans, that is now. Things were different back then. Don’t you suppose that when historians look back and see the U.K. so keen to enter the E.U. that there wasn’t even a referendum that they might not make much note of the dissent? Make no mistake, there was plenty of opposition to the establisment of a federal government and, in my opinion, with as much good cause as there is to oppose the EU.
Rich
Rich
AlanC – I’m the “person verity?” and am fascinated to hear that Texas, CA and FL were in the original 13 Colonies! Your grasp of history and geography is quite – uh – extraordinary.
Did you misunderstand the post? We were talking not about Spanish America – that is, to be clear, the parts of America settled by the Conquistadores in a way different part of the continent and never went anywhere – but the 13 colonies in the 1600s in what is now New England (geddit? The “England” might give you a clue, but I don’t want to prompt you) who developed the entire N American continent – and are still doing so.
I challenged Richard Thomas, who claimed that in the original 13 colonies, there were multiple languages and multiple cultures, to name them, given that I had been given to understand in history classes they were all from England and spoke English and had English habits and clove to English Common Law.
Were there bazouki players, for example, who breached the peace by smashing plates? Italians who drove everyone else crazy with the smell of garlic and noisy family feelings?
I await hearing from Richard Thomas regarding what languages other than English and what cultures other than the British and Irish were in the original 13 colonies which formed the backbone of the United States. And continues to be the engine of the development of the entire New World.
Verity,
ISTR reading there was some debate at the time as to what the official language of the new USA was to be, with many people calling for German. As I recall, German was actually quite a common language in some of the original colonies, and the use of English as the national language was by no means a foregone conclusion.
EG
Hey Verity, Mosquito intellect here: No need for insults. OK I assumed that the EU model might be similar to the US, and as you stated I may be wrong, but the fact is, this board is for asking questions, if they are so blatantly wrong and irritate you let someone else answer them without insults. Or else I might have to rely purely on the ‘infallible’ Wikipedia to find out more.
And yes I have ‘come upon’ the issue late in the game, but at least I have learn’t something. Does this mean all youngsters need not ask questions due to the fact they might have not have heard of the topic before.
Alan C writes:
“Mr. Cooper, I assume from your answer you either didn’t read my entire reply or you didn’t understand it.”
I both read it and understood it. I remain convinced that you are quite wrong and that what you consider a matter of scale is actually a matter of type.
You are comparing sheep with pigs.
Yes, there are lessons to be learned about the dangers of federalisation from the US experience, but they are neither new nor unique and the differences between the two situations are more important than the similarities.
As for your statement:
“To put it bluntly, I think that Europeans are too hubristic to look at America and understand the lessons to be learned”
To which one might respond that there is a tendency among some Americans to be incapable of seeing anything other than through an American filter.
That the EU is a mistake is beyond reasonable question, but relying on the US experience as any sort of useful guide is a dangerous game. After all, it is one of the role models beloved of extreme Europhiles.
Verity,
While your essential point is substantially correct, you undermine it by writing of “the 13 colonies in the 1600s in what is now New England”. Even in the colonial era there was a cultural distinction between the Virginia colony and the New England colonies. For example, the former was sympathetic to the Royalists and the latter to the Parliamentarians during the English Civil War. Further, the colonies did not reach 13 in number until the foundation of Georgia well into the eighteenth century.
Euan,
ISTR reading that the idea that German might have been adopted as the official language of the USA is an urban legend, based on a proposal that German should have equal status with English as an official language in a particular locality in Pennsylvania, which, it is true, had the largest proportion of non-native English speakers of any of the original 13 colonies and which is indeed outside New England (as the phrase is currently used).
Alan Peakall, Thanks for the correction. I hadn’t realised that Georgia was one of the original 13 colonies and I’ll remember that. However, when we speak of “different cultures” we are not talking about two factions within one culture, some of whom support one system and some who support another. We are talking about completely different societies – as in, even today, the French and the British are quite exotic and fascinating to one another because we are so totally different. When a Brit lands in France, if feels foreign and strange. France, so close, feels much more foreign than the US to most of us.
AlanC – The original 13 colonies were monocultural and monolingual, with minor differences in regional accents and mindsets.
Andy Mo – This is not a “board”. It is a blog “for people with a critically rational individualist perspective” to discuss things. The British have been becoming increasingly alarmed by the imperial ambitions of the EU for at least 20 years. Millions of words of pro and con arguments have been written. So you have a lot of reading to catch up on.
AlanC says: “The first thing that you have to do, if you want to federate …”. That’s the point. We don’t. By and large, the Brits who post on Samizdata are not federasts.
Since GCooper’s original statement never made any mention of linguistic imperialism and I don’t feel like going on a fact finding hunt for Verity, I rescind the language part of my later (and, FWIW, digressive from the point I was making) comment.
Go ahead and find another red herring to pick on, Verity. Maybe I missed some punctuation somewhere, that would surely invalidate what I said.
Rich
Why are you concentrating on the original 13 colonies?
If you want to restrict your discussion to that, fine, but you’re missing the rest of the history which is important in that it shows how this stuff tends to develop regardless of the original intentions.
If you want to try different cultures in the 13 try the mercantile, Puritan Mass. with the Plantation based agrarian, slave holding South Carolina.
Some of you are illustrating some of the nasty habits of “True Believers” you like to shoot people who agree with you but don’t subscribe to every single bit of your dogma. Chill out, I’m on your side.
It’s fine that you don’t want the EU, if I was a Brit I wouldn’t want it either. BUT, if you want to fight it you would be wise to look at and understand the anti-federalist arguments AND the federalist arguments. You might find them useful.
Cheers, and good luck you’re going to need it.
Richard Thomas – Linguistic imperialism? When were we discussing linguistic imperialism and in what context?
This: “Go ahead and find another red herring to pick on, Verity” proves the point that some of us are making. Culture and language, far from being red herrings, are our inheritance from our ancestors and these differ all over the continent of Europe. I am not elevating one society and language over any other. All are of critical importance to the people who live in those societies and speak those languages. American federation came about because it was, at the time, essentially monolingual – yes, pockets of German and Dutch, but not significant overall – and monocultural.
You cannot overlay the American experience on the forced, iron-fisted levelling out of ancient nationalities of the EU imperium. You are arguing from a false premise and you have been hoist with your own petard.
No, my point was that there were a significant number of German speakers in some of the 13 colonies (pace Verity’s assumption they were all English), and there was some debate about having German as the official language, in part to distance the US from England. This is true, there really was debate. That there was debate about the issue demonstrates that it would have been possible (although unlikely) to have an alternative to English.
The urban legend part comes with the contention that there was a ballot in which the adoption of German was defeated by a single vote. This is NOT true.
America has no de jure official language, but English is, de facto, lingua franca (funny how we use so much Latin). Soon enough, I suppose, it will be Spanish, at least in the South.
The US seems more alien to me than France. No doubt this is because I am an evil conservative statist rather than a libertarian and do not by default believe that anything American is inevitably the best possible alternative.
Anyway, culture is not static. English and American cultures diverged a long time ago and although close in many ways are quite different in others. In some ways, French culture is closer to English than is American.
EG
Might our American brethren be more enlightened if invited to consider the EU to be less like the USA and more like the USSR?
Euan Gray, not for the first time, strikes me as being bonkers. If he thinks the country safer in Conservative hands than Labour hands he perhaps forgets the history of the party. Heath lied through his teeth to sell the UK down the river, Thatcher was (allegedly) duped into signing yet more rights away, Major threatend to bring his own government dow if Maastricht was not ratified.
The CP makes vaguely EUsceptic noises to keep the party happy, but the parliamentary party is EUphile. A vote for any of the ‘big three’ is a vote for the assimilation of the UK into a federal EU.
Euan Gray writes:
“The US seems more alien to me than France.”
Do I recall you saying you live in Scotland? Adherence to “The Auld Alliance” seems the only credible reason for holding such a bizarre opinion.
I’m afraid I have to agree with Mark: “Euan Gray, not for the first time, strikes me as being bonkers.”
Believing in the Conservatives as potential saviours from the EU? Just how many times does one have to be mugged by the same person before the penny drops?
Mark has a good point, which is why you so often see the EU referred to as the EUSSR. It is statist to the max. It is run by apparachiks. As I posted earlier, the governor of any state in America has more power than Tony Blair does. Toneboy’s following orders.
Well, Euan, perhaps it’s just personal, but I have a sense of homecoming when I land in the US. When I’m in France, I feel foreign. And it’s not just the language (which is trial enough, to be sure), but everything. And I think the French feel the same way about us.
Richard Thomas – Linguistic imperialism? When were we discussing linguistic imperialism and in what context?
Verity, we weren’t. Which is why I was vexed that you were obsessing about the languages part of my comment. Hence I took it out of the argument.
Enough!
This is getting very silly and I refuse to participate further.
Euan
That explains much.
Complete, utter, 100% crap. Dear oh dear …
Re. the bonkers thing; ditto.
Richard Thomas has decreed that this thread is getting very silly. I have not so decided, however, and will therefore continue to participate.
Prior to Richard Thomas mentioning it, there had been absolutely no mention anywhere on the thread of linguistic imperialism. When he wrote: “Since GCooper’s original statement never made any mention of linguistic imperialism and I don’t feel like going on a fact finding hunt for Verity, I rescind the language part of my later … comment. ”
As this was the first we had seen of “linguistic imperialism”, I called him on it and asked for an explanation. Which I didn’t get.
The point is unchanged: the willing alliance of people who are monolingual and moncultural cannot possibly be a template for the forced integration of peoples as diverse linguistically and culturally as the British and Europeans – in many cases against their will (which is why referenda get held over and over again until the electorate sends back the correct answer).
It made sense for the original settlers to band together for strength on a new continent. Europe’s not new. It’s old (and clapped out in my opinion). It’s been settled for thousands of years. They’re not even being urged to band together for mutual protection, which is the only thing that would make any sense at all. They’re being integrated and they’re giving up their national militaries at the same time. Du-uh.
Just wait. In 25 years, there will be a shiny, smartly- booted brand new EU Army and at that point the rulers will be able to do absolutely any damn’ thing they choose, because all the power will be with them and none with the citizenries who no longer have a military to protect them. Mark my words.
Checkpoint Charlie redux.
And a vote for a fringe single issue party which has no chance of power but will ensure the return of a Europhile government is not? Think harder, Mark.
What is it with you people? You only ever see in anyone’s comments those parts which reflect your own preconceptions & ignore the rest. The Conservative party is very far from perfect, I agree, BUT it is the most Eurosceptic of the three main parties.
UKIP, Veritas, et al will never form a government. They will never hold the balance of power. Anyone thinking otherwise is deluding themselves. They WILL fragment the anti-Labour and anti-EU vote – which is why Mandelson urges more coverage of them, for God’s sake, he knows this perfectly well – and a sufficient vote for them will ONLY ensure the return of a Labour government not known for its willingness to stand up to Europe.
I do not see the Tories as saviours from the EU – and kindly point out where I did if you think so – but I do see them as the only realistic option for starting the process of properly evaluating our position in relation to Europe. You seem to seek perfection and instant complete answers – this will not happen, and you need to be realistic about the available options.
These things are. I was expressing a personal view, and although there is much I admire in American culture (or the parts of it I am familiar with), there are other things I dislike. Then again, one can say that about pretty much any country one visits. Overall, I find European countries and cultures the most welcoming and pragmatic. However, the impression formed is entirely subjective & often deeply coloured by one’s unconscious prejudices & preconceptions.
Just because we speak the same language as America does not mean we are necessarily closer culturally in all respects thereto. Again, you only read the bits you want to – I said that Britain and America were closer in many ways, Britain and France closer in some. It should be plain enough from this that I do not consider Britain overall closer to French culture than to American. It is facile to suggest that centuries of shared experience, during which each country has governed large parts of the other, we have fought each other, we have fought together, we have alternately admired and despised each other, has yielded nothing in common. Not as much as we have in common with the US, perhaps, but still more than nothing.
Sometimes I think a focus on the Anglosphere is simply Anglocentrism in less stark terms.
EG
Euan, I agree that Britain and France have an intertwined history, but somehow, I think that’s why we perceive a mystique in each other. I think France is rather thrilling because it is just so *French*. (It’s also irritating for the same reason.) America isn’t particularly thrilling. It feels like home, but freer, friendlier and more efficient.
“Do I recall you saying you live in Scotland? Adherence to “The Auld Alliance” seems the only credible reason for holding such a bizarre opinion.”
Well I also happen to live in Edinburgh and I must say I recall Euan brandishing his contempt for the socialist mafia up here on more than one occassion. I also find Euan’s comments both on voting for the CP at the GE and on the degree of cultural overlapping between Britain and France which is not shared with America entirely reasonable. However I would add that this is because whenever I think of shared experience between the English and the French it is never without a delicious sprinkling of irony!
Euan Le Gray
Nope, I’m not buying the backtracking:
frankly doesn’t accord with:
nor:
Read your last post again. I said nothing of language and plainly it is you who reads into comments anything you like. You stated clearly that the US more more alien to you than France. If your culture is British then it’s an absurd opinion.
Pete_London, Let us ask Euan whether he’s ever been to the US. His comment reads like one by someone who thinks the US rather alien because he’s a bit overwhelmed and doesn’t realise how comfortable he would be there.
S-o-o-o, Euan, have you ever been to the US? Honour system here …
Well, you shouldn’t because there isn’t any backtracking up for sale.
My perception of America is not the same thing as the degree of relative cultural affinity between on the one hand Britain and America and on the other Britain and France. There is nothing inconsistent with finding on a subjective level that A feels more alien to B than does C and at the same time recognising objectively that A and B share more affinity than C and B.
I cannot put it more simply than to say that subjective feeling is not the same as objective fact. I wouldn’t have thought that was a terribly hard concept to grasp.
No, it isn’t. Then again, my experience of the US is limited to Texas, which as the residents told me is probably not the best introduction to America. I live in Edinburgh, and have done for 22 years (less spells working in assorted crapholes around the world). It has a distinctly European, cosmopolitan culture and positively reeks of history – not unlike Paris, for example, but completely unlike Houston or Austin.
To me, and this is a subjective view after all, French and British cultures both feel old and experienced, perhaps somewhat jaded and cynical even, whereas American culture is glitzy, shiny, new – and alien. To me. Add to this a degree of political correctness which seems to be (but may not in reality be) more pervasive and stifling than in Britain or France, and a greater (or at least more obvious to me)prevalence of social conformity and the whole thing feels much more different.
It is often said in condescending terms that the difference between Britain and America is that the British think 100 miles is a long distance and the Americans think 100 years is a long time. That’s a little glib, but there is some truth in even the crudest remark – you just don’t get a sense of history in America. History is an important thing to me, and therefore this stands out as a distinct impression of anodyne – and alien – blandness that you just don’t get in Europe or in Britain.
None of that means, of course, that I do not recognise as fact that American economic principles, legal philosophy and views of the individual are far closer to the British than are the French equivalents. It’s the subjective feel of the place.
EG
Okay guys. I won’t bother you anymore cause we’re just talking at cross purposes.
My point is trying to get you to see the forest instead of the trees. The details of US culture and language matter not a whit in this discussion. I don’t care if the current US seems more alien than Mars or less alien than Liverpool.
The ONE thing that you can learn from is the HISTORY of the US confederation process. Did you know that we had private companies and banks printing their own money right up till, and possibly after, the Civil War? How did the currency issue play during the federation discussion?
If you want to construct arguments rather than emotions to defeat the incorporation of Britain into an EU oligarchy. Look at all the Founding Fathers did and said to try and prevent a centralized tyranny. Look at how well, or not, this turned out. Look at the anti-federalist arguments and see which ones resonate with your situation. Look at the underlying philosophy NOT the details. Look at the trend and see which bulwarks worked and see if they are present (not that I know of) in the EU constitution. Use the absence to bolster your arguments.
We DID have about as good a chance to pull this off as there could possibly be. You don’t for all the reasons you mention, but, we have and are continuing to assimilate every other culture on earth fairly successfully. (You want noisy Italians, try Boston’s North End) The more the Federal Government grew the LESS well the assimilation has gone.
The US is about the only voluntary confederation of significance in history. The USSR et al were empires conquered by force and do not seem relevant to your discussion. Learn from the philosophical history of the US experience and stop worrying about the details of the culture.
Now, have fun and practice your genuflection toward Brussels.
My spell in America was brief – one month then later another 6 weeks based in Houston. I took the opportunity to visit San Antonio, Galveston and Austin several times, and had time permitted would have taken a weekend trip up to Dallas. I would go back, but not to Texas – I’d like to see California and New England. I work for an American multinational company, and so obviously have worked with many Americans (and Indians, Pakistanis, Filipinos, Colombians, Russians, Azeris, Canadians, Nigerians, Chinese, Sudanese, Ghanaians, Frenchmen, one Bangladeshi, one Afghani, two Dutchmen, a couple of Australians and even the odd Englishman), not to mention in several countries.
I would say that with very few exceptions the American people I have met have been universally kind, polite and friendly men and women – there is no personal animus in anything I have said. Whether or not I like someone has nothing to do with where they come from & I suppose I have a more multi-ethnic experience of life than many people – how many men can say (or would be prepared to admit) they have been bear-hugged and kissed on the cheek by a 60 year old Taleban lookalike Afghani in the garden of a Lebanese restaurant in Nigeria, who told me “I love you, Sir” just because I let him call his wife on my mobile phone?
Anyhow.
I had the opportunity to take a long term placement in Mobile, AL, but declined – partly because the money sucked but largely because an Irish friend and colleague didn’t recommend it. He had worked with me in Nigeria for a year, and just before that had spent two years in Mobile. He said, inter alia, that it was harder to get things done in Alabama than in Africa – that is saying something, believe me – and had no desire to go back to either.
A part of my decision was based on the fact that I knew I would not be particularly comfortable living long term in America. Apart from anything else, I don’t trust bread that doesn’t go mouldy even after two weeks of neglect, and it’s bloody hard to find good tea. I don’t personally like in-your-face customer service, any culture that thinks “have a nice day” is a meaningful phrase is surely doomed, I don’t want to work in an environment where you can’t sack someone lest he turns up next day with his buddies and his gun (that happened in Mobile and yes, he got his job back), the television has got to be the worst in the world, but most of all I absolutely REFUSE to take life seriously and that sort of thing just doesn’t seem to work there.
America is a fine place, I’m sure, and full of friendly folks. But it’s not for me.
EG
Pete_London writes:
“If your culture is British then it’s an absurd opinion.”
There is a class of Englishman that believes this – the metropolitan elite, which has always had towards France a similar cultural cringe to that of some Australians towards the UK. It’s from this patrician set that many Europhiliacs are drawn.
It’s nothing new. The robust Tory squire snarled at the invasion of French cooking a couple of hundred years ago, while his aristocratic counterparts fell over themselves to employ French chefs, in the mistaken belief that there was somehow something innately superior about French cuisine.
We are still working out the consequences of the Norman invasion.
In Scotland, on the other hand, resentment of the English has long engendered a fondness for French meddling in our affairs. Small wonder that our Scots correspondents feel so comfy about the French.
Meanwhile, hoi polloi Brits feel absolutely at home in Disneyworld, watch US films, listen to US music, prefer US-style meat cuisine to an ortolan (look it up, kids – it tells you all you need to know about the French foodie mindset) and yet still feel quite able to laugh at the ‘daft bloody Yanks’ – a common level of ambiguity which completely seems to have escaped Mr Gray.
But, feeling more at home in Paris than Boston? To hold that point of view tells you all you need to know.
… and …
So do you think I’m a patrician Englishman or an annoyingly anti-English Scotsman?
You might be, but the rest of the country figured out the consequences of a Franco-Scandinavian invasion some time ago. I’m not sure if this was before or after we occupied large parts of northern France. Maybe it was about the time our army invited a Dutch princeling to take the crown? Or perhaps when we defeated the French army at Dettingen under the command of our German king?
You read but draw all the wrong conclusions. I am not a Europhile – I urged you to consider a Tory vote as a practical Eurosceptic measure and have said here several times before that I do not agree with the idea of the EU. Because I do not equate the EU with the USSR, as do some less discerning libertarians, does not mean I support the EU. That I am not uncritically pro-American does not mean I therefore adore the shade of Napoleon. Life is not black and white, although I’m sure it might be easier for some it it were so.
EG
G Cooper – D’accord!
Euan Gray writes:
“So do you think I’m a patrician Englishman or an annoyingly anti-English Scotsman?”
I don’t care what you are, but you’d be stretching credibility to its limits if you denied the stereotypes. Certainly, your breezy assertion: “The US seems more alien to me than France.” though it no doubt reflects your sincere belief, suggests you are completely at odds with the sentiments of most people in the UK, who seem by far to prefer Spielberg to Truffaut.
Regarding the consequences of the Norman invasion:
“You might be, but the rest of the country figured out the consequences of a Franco-Scandinavian invasion some time ago.”
You’re wrong. The consequences of the injection of Norman-French rule into Anglo-Saxon culture are to be seen every day. If you can’t make them out, it’s for want of observation.
“You read but draw all the wrong conclusions. I am not a Europhile – I urged you to consider a Tory vote as a practical Eurosceptic measure and have said here several times before that I do not agree with the idea of the EU.”
I have never suggested you are a Europhile – merely a dupe, who believes, against all the evidence, that the Conservative Party is reliably Eurosceptic.
Dear me. One of the drawbacks of this excellent blog is the rudeness of some of the protagonists. Is this a French trait or an American one, I wonder.
I said, more than once now, that this is my personal feeling. What part of this is giving you difficulty? What does it have to do with “most people in the UK?” Do I have to share their opinion any more than they must share mine? Patently you do not share my view on this – fine, what does it matter?
Yes, and have been for over 900 years. It is simply not an issue and hasn’t been for centuries. To suggest we are “still working out the consequences” of this is manifestly ridiculous. We still use the Latin language and Roman concepts in several places, so perhaps we are “still working out the consequences” of the Roman occupation.
The Norman Conquest is so deeply ingrained in our culture and happened so long ago that it is impossible to have any meaningful concept of what an alternative might look like. It is part of what we are, but on the other hand so many equally radical changes have happened since – peasants’ revolt, reformation, civil war, assorted foreign monarchical systems, and so on. Really, you might as well suggest we’re still trying to figure out the implications of Magna Carta or haven’t yet come to grips with the Great Schism of 1054.
I do NOT think the Conservative party is “reliably Eurosceptic” – again, kindly point out where I said this. I merely consider that it offers the best realistic opportunity of doing anything at all about the issue – certainly more of an opportunity than a single issue party loaded with winguts, isolationists and other assorted loonies and monomaniacs. Single issue parties do not thrive in the British political system and if you want things to change you need to work within the system as it actually functions, not as you might like it to function.
A Labour government will be business as usual. Lib Dem gives ever closer union. Tory is not perfect by a long shot, but at least is prepared to hold an early referendum – the only credible alternative for government that would even begin to do anything. A UKIP vote will only increase the probability of a Labour victory. This is not rocket science, but perhaps you’ll just have to wait for the election results and see for yourself. What will your position be if UKIP does attract enough votes to split the anti-Labour vote and return Blair again?
As I said before, you need to work with what is available.
EG
Euan,
Thanks for the clarification on the urban legend claim.
It is often said in condescending terms that the difference between Britain and America is that the British think 100 miles is a long distance and the Americans think 100 years is a long time. That’s a little glib, but there is some truth in even the crudest remark – you just don’t get a sense of history in America. History is an important thing to me, and therefore this stands out as a distinct impression of anodyne – and alien – blandness that you just don’t get in Europe or in Britain.
I’d just like to say that having lived in the U.K. for 30 years and in Tennessee for four and having spent a (very) little time in France and Italy that I would agree with Euan’s sentiment here and the rest of the post that it came from.
Similarities and differences are where you find them.
Rich
Ah Euan old friend, where to begin?
Lets start with, your not a conservative bud. Trust me on that one.
“you just don’t get a sense of history in America. History is an important thing to me, and therefore this stands out as a distinct impression of anodyne – and alien – blandness that you just don’t get in Europe or in Britain.”
Crap. If you cannot get a sense of history in America your an idiot. Over 400 years years of European involvment in North America leaves its mark. If you cannot get a sense of history there its because you never looked. Spending a few weeks in Texas and then claiming that US culture is bland and lacks history or depth is quite frankly the worst kind of shallow, arrogant and ignorant stupidty.
My people, who are Acadian French, have not only a long history in the America’s steeped in a unique culture, but that culture remains alive and vibrant. You wont find Cajun culture anywhere else in the world. Travel to anywhere in the US outside the cities and urban areas and you can find old and deep cultures with roots in Europe long histories in America.
But to see this you have to actually travel around the heartland and spend some time. Then you may have some basis for judgement.
Until then your just repeating the standard ignorant prejudice of Euro-elitist snobbery.
It doesnt even rate as “personal opinion”. Personal opinion at least makes a half-assed attempt at being informed.
Well, Shawn, I don’t blame you. The United States is steeped in 400 years of recorded history – so Brits and other critics can date that back to the 1600s their time. It’s not ‘new’ and immature. It has more ballast of history than most countries on this planet – and that includes several countries on the European continent.
And during that 400 years, the advances are mind-boggling. From settler families who had but one (expensive and precious) hunting knife which was passed around the family at the dining table to cut up their meat, to today’s space and medical technology – in 400 years.
I am in absolute awe of the United States.
And nor is Texas history bland. Even if Euan had never been outside Texas, he could have gathered how exciting and dramatic the history of the state is.
America has a history that is packed with bravery (the first settler families in an unknown land with unknown vegetables and plants to see them through) and optimistic, crazy daring … those who ventured further West with no guarantees of anything. No doctors. No suppliers. No familiar herbal medicines. No shops or stores where they were going. And their horses may die on the way. But they went anyway, for hundreds of miles, with their children in their arms, trusting that they would find a way. And, at what cost we don’t know, but they did.
OK. It ended up with California and Barbra Streisand, but there’s always a downside.
Verity,
he did mention San Antonio, and of course, nothing of interest ever happenned there 😉
Even in some urban places, like New York, there is a sense of history and age.
The remarks by him and Richard Thomas are just the standard euro-elitist wank.
Shawn – Sshhh! Don’t mention the Alamo!
There is no fixed credo to which one must subscribe in order to be a conservative. That I do not necessarily agree with you does not mean I am not a conservative, only that I do not necessarily agree with you.
Just out of interest & not that it affects anything, but how much time have you spent in Europe, travelling around the heartland and spending some time? One might argue, although I do NOT, that there is a standard ignorant America-centric view of the world outside the 50 states.
I am not trying to deny that America has any history, by the way. Simply that it doesn’t appear to be particularly important in the American culture I have encountered.
As I said before, I was told by the locals that Texas is not a good introduction to the US. I should also mention a lady from NY state who moved to Texas over 20 years ago & says she still can’t understand the place. I am quite ready to believe that US culture outside the state of Texas is somewhat different, but the impression of history – given the lamentable state of general historical education in the US (commented on by US academics, not Euro-elitists, BTW) – may not be.
True enough, and there is more of a sense of history there, at least around what’s left of the Alamo – but it’s pretty dilute nevertheless.
Indeed. Perhaps this gives a new and vulgar twist to the phrase “mental masturbation.”
There are many Europeans – and British – who most definitely do look down on the Americans as coarse, crude, unsophisticated cowboys. Whatever you may think, I don’t. I have seldom met kinder or more polite people – especially Texans.
What I do think is that American culture places a very low value on history, and it is evident to me at least that this has wider effects as shown by America’s often naive (but well intentioned) approach to the world. If you want to understand the present and make intelligent estimates about the future, there is no option but that you absolutely must understand the past. Mainstream American culture and much of the education system does not seem to quite grasp this. I suppose it will come in time.
EG
Euan, Someone from NY state says she can’t understand Texas – after 20 years! – and you give her statement credence instead of judging her a nitwit?
Texas is fascinating, and not just for its landscape, but for its history. It has twice been an independent republic. Did you know that? How much do you know about the Texas Rangers? How about the town (I’m pretty certain it was Dallas) in the 1800s that telegraphed the Rangers and asked for urgent help because there was a huge riot.
The next morning, the sheriff was at the station, waiting for the first train, and when it arrived, a Ranger stepped down. The sheriff, disappointed, shook his hand and said, “But … only one Ranger?”
“Well,” drawled the Ranger, “we heard y’all only had one riot.” That is a true story.
How could you have missed the snap and pizzazz of Texas, the quick, off-centre humour, the helpfulness, the incredible ‘can-do’ attitude, the concern for individual rights, the Houston Ballet, the Dallas Opera company, the symphonies, the vibrant theatre scene … did you visit the Rothko Chapel in Houston? … oh, gosh, I think Texas is heaven on earth.
If you go to Texas museums, many of which are magnificent, you will see they care very much about their history and it is drilled into them endlessly in school. I would guess the average Texas schoolchild knows far more about its history than the average, state-school pupil in Britain knows about British history. They haven’t got two thousand years of recorded history – maybe just a couple of hundred years, but they certainly make a meal of it!
It’s her opinion. Why should I doubt what she believes? Anyway, she had a more laid back and cynical temperament than the average Texan (or than almost every other American I have ever met, to be honest), and to me such people are more plausible than the enthusiastic and optimistic. But that’s just me. I’m a firm believer in the precept that cynical people don’t get disappointed so often.
However, I have often found that irony, self-deprecation and what might be called a somewhat wry and twisted take on the world just doesn’t go down terribly well either on this blog or in the state of Texas.
Yes.
Well, if we’re swapping anecdotes illustrating cultural characteristics, how about the Indian stationmaster in Egypt who telegraphed the (English) officers up the line asking for urgent help since the station was “surrounded by lions and tigers,” only to get the laconic reply that there are no tigers in Africa. Also a true story.
I did.
Indeed they are.
One might uncharitably riposte “so that’s why you moved from France to Mexico?” However, I’m not that uncharitable, so I won’t.
I didn’t dislike Texas, I just wouldn’t want to live there. Yes, there is culture and history – I don’t deny this – but it just doesn’t seem to be considered all that important. History is not just about what happened, it is about WHY it happened, why something else didn’t happen, and what this means for today and, more importantly, tomorrow. THAT is the part that seems to be considered unimportant, and it really does seem to be national thing. There isn’t the sense anywhere that it actually means something other than “stuff happened.”
Many Americans, and indeed many American policies, seem to assume that the whole world wants to be a capitalist democracy. A casual analysis of history would justify the view that this is simply not true, and it seems that the basis for it is the assumption that what worked for relatively sophisticated 18th century colonists necessarily and inevitably will work for everyone else everywhere else. A brief quote from Bernard Lewis in the introduction to “The Crisis of Islam”:
Of course, there’s always Henry Ford’s “history is bunk” if you prefer the true American view rather than that of an English-born academic who only works there.
Sadly, I have often been struck by the ignorance of many Americans about their own country, their own history, and especially anything that happened outside the US.
EG
Euan Gray writes:
“Sadly, I have often been struck by the ignorance of many Americans about their own country, their own history, and especially anything that happened outside the US.”
I’d decided to give up trying to argue with the tiresome, world-weary Euro-centrist arrogance of Euan Gray, but this latest absurdity demands at least a brief observation.
How anyone who can claim to have experience of the USA or Americans can opine that ‘many’ Americans are ignorant of their country’s history, when they squat in an island filled with rank, putrid, glorified ignorance is beyond belief.
According to recent surveys, “many” British school children think Winston Churchill was an insurance salesman. So let’s have a little less cultural snobbery about Americans. Yes, the US lumpen proletariat is ignorant of its history – but I challenge you to demonstrate that the situation is any worse there than here.
I make a point of not straying into personal anecdotes on Samizdata (who’d want to be another Dave O’Neil?) but I have to reflect that my “other half”, a Tennesseean, has a massively greater grasp of family, local and national history than most people that I know – embarrassingly so at times, and I find this quite common among the colonial thinking classes: in fact far more than I do among the Leftist Europhile “intelligentsia”, whose grasp of history seems tenuous, at best.
Spare us the Bernard Lewis received wisdom about America. It is sanctimonious crap, particularly coming, as it does, from someone whose own profession has bequeathed us generations of historically pig-ignorant Brits.
Verity is quite right: The US is stuffed full of history and thinking Americans are at least as aware of it as their British cousins.
G Cooper, “How anyone who can claim to have experience of the USA or Americans can opine that ‘many’ Americans are ignorant of their country’s history, when they squat in an island filled with rank, putrid, glorified ignorance is beyond belief.”
“Glorified ignorance”: Bravo!
Surgically remove their history from an ancient people and quietly infuse a very alien people and force feed those indigenes, like a Strasburg goose, via the ‘law’, into the digestive system of the indigenes who built the country and, frankly, the Western world, and you have … Tony Blair! Destructor of Britain!
He has destroyed the royal family – and, with these royals, that is probably no loss and, bar Ann, they were complicit – but all the stable countries of Europe have royals. I think a constitional monarchy ensures a security of passage and is far to be preferred to adventuresome policians, who tend to come and go with the tide. That is why we think of Holland, despite its current problems, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Belgium even, as being more stable and more trustworthy in the long term than, let’s say, France.
Those who have read Melanie today, will have noted that she thinks [my interpretion] that T Blair has gulped the British monarchy down his mad, greedy throat.
With this, Alastair Campbell, the puppet-master, will have won. And our monarch was frightened and complaisant.
So if your logic is that if one lives somewhere where a given situation exists, one is not entitled to hold an opinion on a similar situation anywhere else? Please.
Well yes, but you dismiss in such terms anything that doesn’t agree with your preconceptions. Coming from someone who thinks the Norman Conquest is something we are still, after NINE HUNDRED years, trying to work out, it’s hard to take seriously. Perhaps we should still be living in wattle & daub huts and painting ourselves blue (rather than letting the weather turn us blue)? Or maybe the Bronze Age was a bit innovative and alien & we should have stuck with the old “traditional” flint knives?
Where did I say it wasn’t? Not for the first time, you misread and misunderstand. Show me where I said this, and for that matter point out where I wrote the things you said I did earlier in this thread.
Very well, if you insist:
Link:
From the same page:
Some snippets from the CSRA/ACTA survey of 500 senior students at 55 US colleges and universities:
And somewhat disturbingly:
There’s plenty more, DYOR.
Of course, all this is doubtless sanctimonious crap from a bunch of leftist academics and therefore can be safely dismissed.
I don’t pretend the situation in Britain is perfect, but it does not appear to be as bad as in the US.
Verity – Other than the Bravo! bit, I agree with everything else you write in your last post.
EG
I don’t pretend the situation in Britain is perfect, but it does not appear to be as bad as in the US.
I’m sorry, I must have missed the part where you published the equivalent report card for British students. Otherwise, I fail to see how citing figures for US students, however woeful, proves the situation isn’t as bad in the UK. Anecdotal, I know, but the ubiquitous British chav doesn’t strike me as an especially bright specimen.
I’m always dubious about these studies, frankly. They’re a hardy perennial of the education industry. Note the sniffy references to Snoop Doggy Dog and Beavis and Butthead — I suppose in the fifties it was Frank Sinatra and Howdy Doody. The unmistakable stench of ripe old boilerplate.
Euan Gray writes:
“…. you misread and misunderstand…”
Sadly, I read and understand only too well. When I find statements like the following:
“Sadly, I have often been struck by the ignorance of many Americans about their own country, their own history, and especially anything that happened outside the US.”
and
“The US seems more alien to me than France.”
I know exactly the sort of mindset I’m dealing with – as will most readers: it’s that condescending, nose in the air ‘old Europe’ arrogance, so often the target of Mark Steyn.
As for the statistics you quote – they prove absolutely nothing in isolation, as S. Weasel has observed. I’ll match your ignorant inner city American with an equally clueless denizen of London or Liverpool, any day.
If you had actually read my post properly, you would have noticed that it was not discussing “ignorant inner city Americans” but principally college and university students & high school seniors – i.e. not the ignorant equivalent of our equally ignorant schemies, neds and chavs, who graduate into welfare claiming at the earliest opportunity.
This is what I mean by you misreading and misunderstanding. It is almost impossible to debate anything with you, because you habitually (and whether consciously or not I neither know nor judge) misinterpret and/or exaggerate what is being said. You simply ignore questions put to you – such as the one about your position if UKIP facilitated a Labour victory – and make all sorts of allegations about what people have said but, when challenged, ignore requests to justify your remarks.
See above re students.
However, although it’s a fair enough point in itself it’s not entirely germane to my position. In general, I think it not unreasonable to consider that the lower end of the social spectrum won’t necessarily have a particularly good education – those that do get out and improve themselves as fast as they can. I think this applies to most societies, and it certainly does to all the ones I’ve come across so far. I am perfectly happy to accept that other societies may exhibit different trends, but I have no experience of them.
As far as this class of people are concerned, I quite accept that the situation in the UK is likely no better than that in the US. Doubtless one can find survey results to back up any position. Doubtless some will see this as a snobbish and patronising point of view, but it isn’t and any such comments will be cheerfully ignored.
My point was that history does not seem to inform public discourse in America to the same extent it does in Europe, although it is fair to say the difference is not always that great. Certainly, history does not seem to inform American policy to any great extent. It may well be the case that Foggy Bottom is packed with astonishingly bright and historically aware people, but if so their impact on state policy seems to be somewhat limited. I see as particularly disturbing the finding I quoted about no significant difference between history and other majors.
I have sometimes considered that the nature of America itself could go some way to explaining this. It may be that a nation founded on the basis of a break from the past and populated to a very large extent by people keen to escape the prejudices and ancient enmities of places like Europe might inevitably see history as “bunk,” simply because of the inherent focus on new beginnings and the desire to forget the horrors of history. Just a thought, and I don’t claim any particular merit for it.
EG
This thread may be gone by the time everyone gets up and tunes in, but in a sense I agree with Euan here. Americans haven’t actually made a break with the past – the number of times I’ve scrunched up my toes with boredom when meeting a new person and, on hearing my (somewhat) British accent, they hasten to tell me of their antecedents. “I’m one-fourth Irish and one-fourth English – my mother’s grandmother was from Wigan and she came over in the 1880s – and one fourth German – my paternal grandfather’s father came from a little village in …..”. Aaaaarggghhh!
I see this as a desire to cling on to the past.
However, I think Euan is correct in another sense. Those who left Britain and Europe for a land they had only heard about and never seen must have regarded themselves a closing one chapter and opening a new one. And it was the optimists, the hopeful, the determined, who sold up and went to America. They turned their faces towards the sun, and the future.
History doesn’t play such a large role in their lives, although it is there and they are proud of it. Don’t say anything negative about the Alamo in Texas, for example.
Europeans, by contrast, have their faces firmly turned to the past. This is one reason why they are clapped out and failing.
Euan Gray writes:
“It is almost impossible to debate anything with you, because you habitually (and whether consciously or not I neither know nor judge) misinterpret and/or exaggerate what is being said. You simply ignore questions put to you – such as the one about your position if UKIP facilitated a Labour victory – and make all sorts of allegations about what people have said but, when challenged, ignore requests to justify your remarks.”
To take your second point first, I deliberately ignored your remark about a supposed UKIP threat to a theoretical Conservative victory (as if such a thing were possible!) because it was a red herring. We were not discussing general elections, as I tried to point out.
However, as you seem incapable of understanding the value of the UKIP without direct reference to a general election, I’ll explain it to you.
It is perfectly possible to support the UKIP and to vote Conservative, where this makes sense. I understand it is what many UKIP supporters do and I may well do this myself. However, in many constituencies, a Tory vote is a wasted one, so in a general election, a UKIP vote can send a strong message to Conservative strategists, without making a blind bit of difference to the election outcome. In a first past the post system, this makes complete sense.
Beyond its role in general elections, the UKIP has a valuable part to play in the forthcoming referendum campaign. Overall, if nothing else, its presence sends a warning shot across the bows of the Conservatives and helps keep the Clarkeites in their place. The size of the UKIP helps remind the Tories of grass roots opinion.
As for your first remark, I’ll leave it to anyone still reading this tiresome thread to decide for themselves. For my part, I find your constant backtracking and inconsistancy puzzling. You repeatedly protest your affection for the US, while at the same time sounding like the worst kind of condescending snob about the country. I have repeatedly quoted your own words about the US back at you. They speak for themselves and it surely needs no misinterpretation or exaggeration on anyone else’s part to reveal the truth.
And with that, I’ll leave you to enjoy the final word, as the thread drops off the page.
If you had actually read my post properly, you would have noticed that it was not discussing “ignorant inner city Americans” but principally college and university students & high school seniors – i.e. not the ignorant equivalent of our equally ignorant schemies, neds and chavs, who graduate into welfare claiming at the earliest opportunity.
I don’t know how the drop-out rate in the UK compares to that in the US (and a bit of half-hearted googling discouraged me from finding out precisely), but my definite impression is that finishing high school (or passing the equivalent test), and in fact completing some college, is more common in the US. This is further confused in the US because anything beyond high school, including trade school, is typically called a college. The guy learning to repair refrigeration units is technically a college man.
This has been a bad trend in many ways; it weakens the importance and dilutes the real worth of education. I don’t know that kids get anything out of it beyond a few additional years of boredom and increased job prospects. But it means that kids who would’ve gone right into the workforce at 16 a generation ago stay in school longer, including a much higher proportion of “ignorant inner city Americans” than was once the case.
Because you can’t answer it, I think you mean. In any case, I have noticed that ignoring questions – particularly difficult or inconvenient ones – is something you do on a regular basis, it is not confined to this matter. To be fair, you are not alone in this.
You thought the thread was about the European constitution referendum, when this had not been mentioned or even alluded to anywhere. See what I mean about misreading? You are presumably aware that a general election is going to be held BEFORE a referendum, and should be aware that the result could significantly affect when the referendum would be held, and I hope you are aware that whilst UKIP is unlikely to aid the Eurosceptic cause in the election it may well hinder it. The issue of the general election is FAR more important right now than the referendum, which might not be held for over a year yet. The UKIP has the potential to royally screw up the whole process for the Eurosceptics – which is exactly why Mandelson said what he did.
Probably because you insist on trying to see these things when they are not actually there. This is bound to cause puzzlement. I stated my position, I stand by it, and I have not backtracked.
EG
America is not the same thing as the United States of America. I mean, Hawaii isn’t even in “America” (but it is in the USA), it’s in Polynesia. America Describes the North & South American continents as well as adjacent islands such as those in the West Indies.
And to all those who say England when they’re referring to Britain or the UK? England makes up the southeatern majority of Britain, which also includes Wales to the west and Scotland to the North. And the UK includes the isle of Britain as well as Ulster (Northern Ireland) and the Isle of Man.